United States + International (Remote) Remote (Global) Employment $241,000

GiveWell is hiring a Senior Livelihoods Researcher

About the Role

The role involves identifying and assessing high-impact programs that improve economic outcomes for people in low-income countries, with a focus on generating evidence-based conclusions to inform donors.

Responsibilities

  • Lead comprehensive evaluations of interventions aimed at improving income and employment
  • Analyze data on program outcomes and economic impacts
  • Collaborate with external experts and implementing organizations
  • Write detailed reports summarizing findings and recommendations
  • Assess the scalability and sustainability of livelihoods initiatives
  • Evaluate cost-effectiveness across different intervention models
  • Identify gaps in existing research and prioritize further investigation
  • Develop and refine metrics for measuring success
  • Engage with academic literature to inform analysis
  • Present findings to internal teams and stakeholders
  • Support the development of grant recommendations
  • Maintain up-to-date knowledge of global development trends
  • Conduct site visits or remote assessments when necessary
  • Verify data accuracy and methodological rigor
  • Synthesize qualitative and quantitative evidence
  • Contribute to discussions on research methodology
  • Help refine frameworks for evaluating social programs
  • Work cross-functionally with policy and operations teams
  • Manage timelines for research deliverables
  • Ensure transparency in analytical processes

Compensation

Competitive salary based on experience and location

Work Arrangement

Remote with potential for occasional travel

Team

Part of a research-focused team dedicated to identifying high-impact giving opportunities

Our Research Process

  • We conduct in-depth analysis of charitable programs, focusing on evidence of impact and cost-effectiveness
  • Our evaluations combine data review, expert interviews, and field research
  • Findings directly inform recommendations for donors seeking to maximize their impact

Impact Focus

  • We prioritize interventions with the potential for large-scale, measurable improvements in well-being
  • Research emphasizes rigor, transparency, and real-world applicability

Not offered

About company
GiveWell
GiveWell is dedicated to finding and funding outstanding giving opportunities in global health and development, sharing the full details of our analysis with everyone for free. Our giving funds enable donors to contribute to the most impactful and cost-effective programs our researchers identify. Since 2007, we’ve directed over $2.6 billion to cost-effective programs and interventions. In the last two years, we’ve made more than $500 million in grants. GiveWell is one of the world’s largest private funders of global development efforts, and we estimate that the funding we’ve directed will save more than 340,000 lives. GiveWell is most well-known for recommending a small number of Top Charities, which currently support seasonal malaria chemoprevention, antimalarial nets, vaccine incentivization, and vitamin A supplementation. However, most of our research capacity is devoted to finding cost-effective opportunities outside of those programs. GiveWell grants have: Helped governments to implement high-impact health programs, like in-line chlorination of drinking water in India and HIV/syphilis screening and treatment for pregnant people in Zambia and Cameroon. Funded program delivery alongside strengthened monitoring and evaluation, as in our grants to support treatment of clubfoot and to evaluate the program. Sought to scope and scale promising interventions that don’t have clear existing implementers. We are supporting the Clinton Health Access Initiative’s Incubator and Evidence Action’s Accelerator to identify potentially cost-effective interventions and create programs that we would be excited to support in the future. For example, we funded a program to provide diarrhea treatment to children in Nigeria that we co-designed with CHAI through the Incubator program. Tested our assumptions through further research, including studies on the effect of water chlorination on mortality, the impact of a tree-planting program on farmers’ income, and the effects of combining the RTS,S malaria vaccine and perennial malaria chemoprevention. We never take for granted that GiveWell’s work is good for the world. We make our reasoning public and transparent so others can challenge it (sometimes we even pay people to point out our errors). We go to unusual lengths to check our assumptions and assess our impact, including funding research and external analysis to address our uncertainties and insisting that our grantees conduct rigorous monitoring and evaluation. We change our minds when the evidence demands it.
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Job Details
Department Livelihoods
Category other
Posted 3 days ago